Review Centre

“The Courthouse Assistance Project will benefit the many who cannot afford an attorney, as well as judges and court staff. I am pleased that the Legal Aid Society of Hawai‘i and the Judiciary is providing this much-needed service,” he said.

The Legal Aid Society of Hawai‘i, a state-wide non-profit agency funded by grants and donations, has been offering similar services since it was founded in 1950.

“The difference is now we’ll be in the courthouse. It’s a matter of access,” said staff attorney Linda Vass. “When people get into court and find out how difficult it is to represent themselves, they will be able to come to us.”

An attorney will be at the first-floor courthouse office on Mondays between 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m., Tuesdays between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. and Wednesdays between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m.

Vass said that a similar program has been in use in Honolulu’s First Circuit Court and that the Kaua‘i office was trying to “use them as a framework.”

Services for income-eligible criminal or traffic defendants will not be included in the new program, but will still be provided through the public defender’s office.

Missouri regulators have rejected Attorney General Jay Nixon’s request to take further legal steps against a financially troubled St. Louis seller of prepaid funeral plans.

“Legal action … could worsen the impact on consumers,” Linda Bohrer, acting director of the state’s Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions & Professional Registration, told Nixon’s office in a letter made public Tuesday.

In cooperation with Missouri and other states, Texas insurance regulators in April seized National Prearranged Services Inc., along with two related insurance firms in Texas, and placed them in receivership.

The company’s financial meltdown has put an estimated 2,600 funeral homes in 19 states at risk of providing funerals under terms of consumers’ prepaid contracts but not being reimbursed their full value that was underwritten by National Prearranged. About 45,000 consumers are thought to be affected in Missouri and Kansas.

Bohrer told Nixon that regulators from numerous states are “making great strides in creating a plan which would offer the best possible protection to consumers and funeral homes in Missouri.

“Litigation by the attorney general’s office against insurance companies or financial institutions at this time could have a detrimental effect on the plan being developed by the special deputy receiver and insurance guaranty associations to protect existing and future assets for Missouri consumers and funeral directors,” she said.

A spokesman for Nixon disagreed.

“We are surprised and disappointed that the Department of Insurance and the Division of Finance have refused to allow the full arsenal of legal options to be used to protect Missouri businesses and consumers,” Nixon spokesman John Fougere said.

The St. Louis Cassity family controls National Prearranged and numerous affiliated businesses including Mount Washington Forever Cemetery and Funeral Home in Independence.

Information Timm and Two Rivers Police Chief Joseph Collins distributed to retailers in the city specifies the following are legal: «caps, toy snakes containing no mercury, model rocket engines, sparklers containing no magnesium, party poppers, small smoke devices, cylindrical fountains 100 grams or less total weight, and cone fountains 75 grams or less total weight.»

Examples of illegal fireworks are roman candles, bottle rockets, firecrackers and mortars, according to a news release from acting Manitowoc Police Chief Tony Dick.

It is legal to sell fireworks in Wisconsin but only to people who have a legitimate permit, according to information from Collins.

«Permits issued or sold by fireworks vendors are invalid,» the information states.

«Read the fine print,» Collins said.

It may state the permit is valid only in a specific location in another state.

Mayors, village presidents and town chairmen may issue fireworks permits or designate a municipal employee or official to do so, but they may not designate a fireworks vendor, according to the information from Collins. The permits are valid only on the date specified and only in the city, village or town where they were issued.

A legal opinion slams the land deal between Israel Salt Industries Ltd. (TASE:SALT), controlled by members of the Dankner family, and the Israel Land Administration (ILA). The opinion has just been disclosed now, five years after the deal that aroused a storm of controversy.

In October 2003, the ILA Council agreed that land leased by Salt Industries for its industrial salt production from the ILA until 2060 could be rezoned for residential use. The ILA and Salt Industries would share the proceeds.